Bruce Pearl was always going to be a tough act to follow... Cuonzo Martin started promisingly enough, taking a team missing seven out of the prior year's top ten contributors (and the top three) and embarking on a furious finish to the season, narrowly missing out on an NCAA tournament berth. He even dazzled in recruiting, convincing Memphis-native and seemingly Kentucky-bound five-star recruit Jarnell Stokes to head to Knoxville. But in the first two years of his tenure, every time Tennessee seemed poised to break through, his team instead fell short, often in the most agonizing fashion possible...

... after every hard-fought, disappointing loss, there he is, a saintly presence on the screen: Bruce, Our Once and Future King.

With seven games left on the schedule, does Martin have anything left to change the narrative?

■Tennessee says criticism of head coach Cuonzo Martin brought the Vols together, reports Patrick Brown of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Tennessee has won its last four straight, including a 38-point win over Vanderbilt and a 27-point win over Missouri.

Pearl, who has one spot left to fill on his coaching staff after announcing the hire of Chuck Person Monday, has spent his time at Auburn putting the current players through a grueling strength and conditioning program designed to get the team ready to play in his pressing, up-tempo style.

Three weeks after he was first hired, Pearl is pleased with the progress so far.

"During the last two weeks, I think there have been some cultural changes (with) the way we approach practice," Pearl said. "We had a 6 a.m. workout this morning that looked much different than the 6 a.m. workout we had two weeks ago."

Pearl has leaned heavily on Auburn's strength and conditioning staff, led by assistant strength and conditioning coach Damon Davis.

The key is to get the team ready to play Pearl's up-tempo style.

Person, in particular, said on Monday that Auburn's teams under Pearl would never get beat for lack of conditioning.

Golden played at Saint Mary's, where he graduated in 2007. He played for Pearl at the Maccabiah Games in 2009 and was the team's co-captain. He played alongside Steven Pearl, Bruce's son.

“In coaching, in management and in leadership you surround yourself with people better than you and you look for great dimensions,” Pearl said in a statement. “Having coached Todd Golden and having watched his career in coaching I knew he could be a great asset to help me develop this program.”

Golden has been on Auburn's campus for most of the last week.

Auburn has one more major spot to fill on its staff as Pearl searches for a third on-the-court assistant. Auburn legend Chuck Person joined Pearl's staff Monday. He joins Tony Jones on Pearl's staff. Steven Pearl will serve as the team's assistant strength and conditioning coach.

Pearl may make a decision on a third assistant coach by the end of the week. He interviewed 12 candidates in Arlington, Texas during the Final Four, including Cal assistant Greg Gottlieb and Oklahoma State assistant Butch Pierre, according to a source.

Patrick Beilein, the son of Michigan coach John Beilein, was on Auburn's campus Monday. Beilein coaches West Virginia Wesleyan.

Bowers signed with Florida State in November but was released from his national letter of intent in January after he was arrested for allegedly eating marijuana in order to conceal it from police officers during a traffic stop. Charges were later dropped.

Bowers told AuburnSports.com he wasn’t guilty of any wrongdoing during the alleged incident.

“About that incident, I was proven innocent,” he said. “I was falsely accused. People might think badly of me, but I don’t smoke. I was around the wrong people. People think I’m a bad guy – I’m a good guy.”

Bowers, who plans to sign with Auburn on Wednesday, believes he will be able to help the Tigers immediately.

“I looked at the depth chart and they need a four man,” Bowers told Auburn Sports. “I love the offense, they let the four man go and everybody shares the ball. It would be a great fit.”

Auburn is on pace to set a season-ticket record for men's basketball next season, coach Bruce Pearl said in a letter to fans Tuesday.

"Season tickets are already going fast for next season," Pearl said in an email sent to Auburn fans Tuesday morning. "We are on pace to set an Auburn Arena season ticket record. That news alone will help us change perceptions nationally."

Auburn is selling season tickets with prices ranging from $150 to $350 with a $50 deposit per seat.

The message comes following a big recruiting weekend for Pearl's coaching staff, which managed to gain a commitment from forward Cinmeon Bowers, the nation's top junior college player.

"We need you there at Auburn Arena this season as we create something truly special," Pearl also says in the letter. "There are some who believe it can't be done in men's basketball at Auburn. Together, let's prove them wrong."

Well if anybody can win at Auburn and turn the program around it's Pearl. Auburn cares too much about football for basketball to ever be good IMO but you can't say they aren't trying with this home run hire.

"Well, obviously Gus had a remarkable year," Barkley said Tuesday on a fairway at Shoal Creek. "That was one of the coolest turnarounds I've ever seen. And now we've just got to get Bruce some players. I told him, anything he needs me to do, I want to help. We've just got to get some players."

"I can't take advantage of some of the momentum of my hiring personally and that's been a factor with a couple of prospects that don't know me well enough to actually make a decision," Pearl said. "'I've got to make a decision to play for this guy and never talk to him?' It's been challenging. That doesn't mean it's been prohibitive, but there have been a couple guys we coulda, shoulda if I could have had a conversation with them."

Pearl is barred from talking to high school and AAU coaches about recruits, too, which has proven difficult. Pearl is leaning on assistants Tony Jones, Chuck Person and Harris Adler on the recruiting trail in the meantime. The coach has also scheduled a basketball camp for "elite" prospects on the day his show-cause penalty ends: Aug. 24.

Auburn Hire: Bruce Pearl -- ...It's because of what he did in Knoxville for six seasons -- taking the Vols to the NCAA tournament every single spring. For a school like SEC bottom-feeder Auburn to get a basketball coach like Pearl is a grand slam -- and the only way it happened is because Pearl was itching to get back on the sideline after being hit with a three-year show-cause penalty by the NCAA. He'll have Auburn hoops relevant in time. My only concern with Pearl is his staff, which doesn't feature a top-notch recruiter like he had in Knoxville with Steve Forbes.

The Insider also has Buzz Williams, Kelvin Sampson, Cuonzo Martin ranked among the top hires for 2014.

Bruce Pearl was hired by Auburn this March despite the fact that he still had almost five months remaining on his show-cause penalty.

Pearl can be a figurehead for the Auburn program, but until August 24th, he is not allowed to take part in any recruiting for the program. He can’t call players. He can’t interact with them on twitter. He can’t speak to them if they visit campus. Nothing. He’s not involved in the process at all.

"I'm not asking anybody to be patient – don't be patient - but don't quit on us," Pearl said. "Don't be patient, I'm not patient either, our players shouldn't be patient. It's been 10 years since we made the NCAA Tournament - don't be patient - but stay with us. I don't know what it's going to look like."

Auburn fans knew how dreadful the Tigers looked during the past four years under Tony Barbee. Despite one of the most woeful periods in the program's history fans are gobbling up season tickets to the point where Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs told the Montgomery Advertiser he suspects Auburn Arena to be sold out by the time the season starts.

Bruce Pearl says Auburn will host at least one high-quality opponent at Auburn Arena during the non-conference season. He is still working on the schedule, which already includes home game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee (opener) and Middle Tennessee. The Tigers will travel to Colorado (ESPN Tip-Off Marathon), Texas Tech and Clemson.

The SEC Network will be able to show those things, and the coaches are full of ideas.

"Get 'em on our bus," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. "Get 'em at our pregame meal. Get 'em exposed to different places where, if I go to the SEC, look at the coverage I'm getting 24/7. Look at the access I'm getting, and let it be player-featured."

Pearl even suggested the network could show him cooking at his home at a barbecue. Wait. Isn't that what led to his downfall at Tennessee?

"Gotta make sure the guest list is where it needs to be," he said. "Don't you think the fans wanna see that?"

Pearl has already picked up former UK commitment (from the Billy G. days) K.C. Ross-Miller, former Florida State signee Cinmeon Bowers and former Virginia Tech commit T.J. Lang, among others.

Canty was named third team All-Conference-USA and was a member of the league’s All-Freshmen team. He’s a 6-foot-1 guard out of Brooklyn, New York, who will have three years of eligibility remaining after sitting out the 2014-15 season.

Pearl explains, quite simply, that Auburn has everything he needs to win.

Beyond that, though, he just wanted back in the SEC.

Period.

Who knew Frank Haith would subsequently leave Missouri for Tulsa? And though there were signs that Cuonzo Martin could try to leave Tennessee for any other good job, the reality is that Pearl understood, even if thousands who signed an online petition didn't, that he'd never be rehired in Knoxville regardless of whether UT eventually had an opening or not. So when Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs flew to Bristol, Conn., less than 24 hours after firing Tony Barbee, and promised a commitment to winning combined with a contract worth $2.2 million a year, it didn't take long for Pearl to accept. He had a boss with a vision who believed in him, all the resources he desired -- "Auburn already has a top-three recruiting budget in the SEC," Pearl points out -- and an opportunity to rejoin a league where he years ago became a larger-than-life character.

Thus, Pearl is coaching -- now at a school that's never made a Final Four, been to only one Elite Eight and failed to reach the NCAA Tournament in each of the past 11 seasons. Put another way, again, this is a historically tough job, and it's a job that, at the moment, is tougher than it would otherwise be because, like I mentioned at the top, Pearl is still counting the days until he can operate like a normal college basketball coach again.

That day comes 80 days from now.

"August 24," Pearl answers when I ask for a reminder of when his show-cause penalty expires, and it's not a coincidence that Auburn's first "Elite Camp" for high school prospects starts that morning.

Pearl will leave the state of Alabama entirely when recruits visit campus, either officially or unofficially.

"I've even gone back to Knoxville," Pearl says. "I just leave town."

When he's in town, the staff coordinates everything by cell phone, meaning Pearl will leave the offices when his assistants have a prospect in the offices, then maybe take a lunch or dinner break when his assistants are showing off the arena, locker room and weight room.

Taken down once by a photo with Aaron Craft and family at the Pearl family BBQ, Pearl says he does not want to take any chances.

Bruce Pearl's six-year contract at Auburn is heavy on bonuses and threatening language if he violates the terms of the NCAA's show-cause penalty.

The contract, signed May 12 by Pearl, was obtained Friday by AL.com through an open-records request.

Pearl will earn $2.175 million in his first year, with the total rising $100,000 each year. Pearl also received a $500,000 signing bonus, upping the value of the contract to more than $15 million over the next six years.

The contract also includes the potential of 20 additional bonuses totaling $1.225 million, including three academics-based bonuses, in each year.

The 35-page contract is also filled with guidelines and language related to Pearl's NCAA show-cause penalty, which ends the morning of Aug. 24.

The university can either fire or suspend Pearl with an adjusted yearly salary of $1.2 million if it finds he has violated his show-cause order...

Bruce Pearl's vision for Auburn basketball extends beyond the court, into the stands and even onto the road in other SEC arenas.

When Pearl takes his team on the road, he wants a bus, or a fleet of buses, full of Auburn fans following him down the highway.

Bringing back the Tip-Off Club, a club of Auburn basketball fans that had been going strong for more than two decades before taking a one-year break last season, is a big part of that vision.

"This is required. It's essential. This is the lifeblood of a program," Pearl said at the Tip-Off Club's first meeting at the Saugahatchee Country Club on Thursday. "The students, the faculty, the Tip-Off Club, our scholarship donors, our former lettermen, that's the foundation of our program."

Pearl has his own vision for the Tip-Off Club.

One of his chief goals this offseason has been to raise support among alumni and the local adult fan base, chiefly because the student section is gone for large chunks of the basketball season.

A year after Auburn posted the second-lowest average attendance in the SEC of 5,823 fans -- the lowest in the four-year history of Auburn Arena -- Pearl wants to make sure the Arena is loud even when the students are home for the holidays.

Tip-Off Club president Philip Minor remembers days like those at Auburn. A student at Auburn in the 80's, Minor stood in line for hours to get into games during the Sonny Smith era. The same happened when Chris Porter and Doc Robinson brought the Tigers back in the late 90's.

Mason is the third transfer Pearl and his staff have added since he took over for Tony Barbee. Marshall transfer Kareem Canty averaged 16.3 points and 5.5 assists last season, and will have to sit out this season and have three remaining. New Mexico State guard K.C. Ross-Miller also will be eligible this season after graduating.

Auburn also added former Florida State signee Cinmeon Bowers, a 6-7, 260-pound big man who is considered one of the top junior college players in our nation.

Pearl was on the radio this morning still complaining about not being able to recruit due to his show cause penalty. Said he is allowed to lead workouts throughout the summer that all coaches have access to do.

Auburn has gained commitments from seven players, including six immediately eligible in the fall, since November and are in danger of exceeding the 13-player scholarship limit. The Tigers added to their haul Wednesday with the commitment of Antoine Mason, the nation's leading returner scorer out of Niagara...

"It's a moving target and the best two teams in the league historically have been Kentucky and Florida, and historically they've had the best-looking rosters," Pearl told AL.com before participating in Gus Malzahn's Children's Charity Golf Classic at Moore's Mill Club. "So we're making some adjustments and our returning players have been really willing and had a very active hand when we have prospects come on campus."